


it's the colors you have (no need to be sad)

by orphan_account



Series: 50 Shades of Derek's T-Shirts [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek picks up a three-pack of colored v-necks at Target. They were out of anything practical, like gray or black, so he goes with burgundy. It's no big deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's the colors you have (no need to be sad)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is cross-posted from tumblr, so you may have already read it. Yes, I realize I changed the spelling from "colours" to "colors" in the title of this story. No, I'm not sorry.

“You—what is that  _color_?”

Even when all else has gone to hell, Derek can count on Stiles to be displeased.

“No, really,” Stiles continues, equal parts suspicious and accusatory. “What is that— _burgundy?_  What the hell are you doing wearing burgundy? Since when do you _own_ burgundy?”

Derek looks down at his shirt and picks at some of the lint there, trying to ignore the way he feels his ears heating up at the  _bizarre_ amount of attention being given to his simple, solid-colored v-neck.

Which, yeah, is burgundy.

(It had been on sale and the fabric had felt nice under his fingers, and so few things felt nice anymore that he’d thought ‘ _okay_ ,  _then_.’)

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear—” Stiles inflates like he’s ready to jump into some serious teasing or arguing— both equally likely, with him—when Scott elbows him in the ribs and coughs. “Oh, right.”

Deaton, when Derek finally chances a look up, looks amused, his lips curled upward and his eyebrows high on his forehead. The bastard.

“So, um,” Scott starts.

“It looks like we’re all here,” Deaton says, pushing open the half-door leading to the operating room of the animal clinic.  “Shall we?”

When Stiles brushes past Derek to get through, his eyes linger on Derek’s shirt. There’s a flush to his cheeks and a sharp, spiced scent hits Derek like a load of bricks. Arousal.

Derek holds his breath and waits it out.

 

 

 

He really thought they’d been getting somewhere—somewhere  _good—_ when Scott and Chris Argent had agreed, as separate entities, to meet with Derek and Peter,  _finally_ , and get shit sorted out. Then Scott had to bring along Stiles and Stiles’s  _father_ of all people, and, really, it was no freaking surprise that the Alpha pack decided to descend on them after that.

When it rains it pours, after all.

In the ensuing chaos—the Alphas using their howls through the woods to completely hide their locations as they stalked—Derek winds up in the shelter of two massive, fallen trees crossed over one another, a small ditch beneath them both that he crawls into on his knees and elbows.

Stiles is already there, glaring out at the dark forest like he can see a goddamn thing.

“Scott has my dad,” he tells Derek, like he expects Derek to care. “They’re headed back to the house. Which leaves us  _here_ figuring out what to do next.”

Derek makes a gruff noise and says. “We wait it out.”

Stiles rolls his eyes like maybe he’ll argue, but he just says, “ _A_ _wesome_.”

“If you  _want_ to run out there and challenge them,” Derek says slowly, keeping his voice low, “I won’t stop you.”

Stiles turns his head to glower at Derek. Against the flat darkness surrounding them, his skin is tinted blue, smooth and even save for the smattering of moles on his cheeks. “I’m good,  _thanks_.” He pauses. “This is your fault, you know.”

Derek glares. “ _My_ fault,” he repeats flatly, somehow surprised that that’s where Stiles has decided to place the blame this time. “You think this is  _my_ fault that we’re—”

“Your fault,” Stiles says sternly, pressing his curled up fist to Derek’s shoulder as emphasis. He’s sweating, though his hand is cold from the autumn night. “If you would just go back to wearing  _non_ -colors, maybe they wouldn’t have freaking seen us fifty-bajillion miles away.”

 _That,_ however, does surprise Derek. A lot. He looks down at the collar of his thermal top, the color of which the tag has named “viridian.” (Derek calls it  _blue-green_ , but whatever.) Then he looks at Stiles with a scowl and says, “Are you seriously—”

“Shh!” Stiles hisses, unfisting his hand and clapping it over Derek’s mouth. It’s not exactly sealed down—wouldn’t prevent Derek from speaking if he wanted to—but the signal is obvious. Stiles’s palm smells like sweat, and Derek’s tempted to lick it, just to taste. Just to understand a  _little_ the stuff this boy is made of.

Instead, Derek purses his lips and turns his eyes up towards the rest of the forest, where he can see someone’s boots and jeans and a gaudy belt buckle.

If it’s an Alpha, they’re fucked. No way around that.

And it’s definitely an Alpha.

When it rains, it pours, Derek reminds himself. He takes the hand across his mouth in one of his own and says, “Stiles,” as the boots start coming toward them.

Stiles makes a muted, attempting-to-be-brave noise in response.

“On my word,” Derek says, meeting Stile’s eyes. Stiles nods back, once, and tenses up all over.

The second the Alpha’s thrown back the massive trees covering Derek and Stiles, the two of them are on their feet, and Derek’s saying, “Run!” and, with Stiles’s hand tight in his own, that’s what they do.

 

 

 

“Ow,” Stiles complains, and Scott snorts.

“My mom gave you, like,  _so_ many drugs, dude. You can’t milk this in front of me,” Scott says, though his voice is sympathetic.

“Well, maybe I wasn’t trying  _you_ , huh?” Stiles suggests, gesturing with his good arm (the one that’s not in a sling) to the rest of the people in Scott’s foyer. “Maybe I was trying for the sympathy vote from these guys.”

All Boyd does is raise his eyebrows when Stiles looks his way, and Stiles just sort of… deflates with an irritated huff.

Derek would pay good money to be able to do that.

“Fine, whatever,” Stiles says, dismissing them with a turned back as he shuffles into the kitchen. He mutters ‘ _freaking_   _werewolves’_ as he goes. Scott watches him with a fond expression before turning back to Derek, Boyd, and Isaac.

“This can’t happen again,” he says, firmly. “That,” a wave towards Stiles in the kitchen, “ _can’t happen_ again.”

“People get hurt, Scott,” Derek says, willing himself not to think of Erica, of Laura, of the eleven people that burned to death in his home almost a decade ago. “This is war.”

“They shouldn’t  _have to,_ though,” Scott insists, his chin raised and his eyes narrowed. “We’re just kids!  _Erica_  was just a kid!”

And, suddenly, that wound is ripped open, tender and bloody, and Isaac and Derek flinch.

Boyd, though.

Not even a second passes before Boyd has Scott pinned by the throat against the wall, his eyes a bright, molten gold.

“ _Don’t_ —” he hisses, but then there’s a hundred and fifty pounds of teenager hurling into Boyd’s side, suddenly, knocking him several feet away from Scott, his grip loosened in the impact.

“Sonofa _bitch_ ,” Stiles hisses, doubling over and clutching at his bad arm—the arm he used to dislodge Boyd. “What are you assholes  _made_  of? Adamantium?”

Boyd’s eyes are still gold, but he grinds his teeth and looks away from where Scott is rubbing at his throat and glowering. Isaac looks completely torn, and Derek feels what little control he’s scrambled for the past few months slipping through his fingers.

“Let’s just,” Stiles says, winded as he straightens himself out, “chalk that one up to the fact that Derek’s wearing  _orange_ today and move on, can we?”

Scott makes an incredulous noise, Isaac snorts, and Boyd purses his lips. Stiles looks right at Derek, quiet for a beat, then shrugs.

“What?” he asks Scott, sounding earnest. “How can we be pissed at these two for acting nutty when their leader has clearly gone  _totally freaking insane_?”

Scott considers that, then Derek’s shirt. Then he says, “I think it’s actually more rust.”

Stiles grins, stupidly, and Boyd’s lips unpurse. Isaac doesn’t even try to hide his laughter.

Derek flushes.

 

 

 

The thing is.

The  _thing is_.

The thing about it is—

Derek doesn’t know  _why_ Stiles  _cares_.

It’s not like Derek’s never worn colors before. He has plenty of colored things in his suitcase! Sensibly-colored things, blues and greens and browns, that have been dulled and grown muted after years of wear, sure—but they’re still  _colors_.

The way Stiles goes on, it’s like he’s never seen Derek wear anything other than gray or black. Like  Derek’s buying new clothes and wearing them is the most distracting at any given time.

Derek shouldn’t think about it, shouldn’t wonder what it means and what it says and what he should do about it.

But.

The thing is.

The  _thing_ is.

The thing about it is—

He can’t  _not_.

 

 

 

Stiles is easy enough to catch off guard; he lives in his head a lot, as far as Derek can tell. Probably spent a lot of time as a kid playing  _imagination._ Probably picked up books when other kids were picking up baseballs.

Of course, there’s baseball trophies (exclusively of the “you tried” variety) on Stiles’s bookcases and dresser, so maybe Derek doesn’t have such a good read of the kid. Not that it’d be super surprising or anything.

Derek’s not even sure if he has a good read on  _himself_.

But when Stiles comes stumbling through his door after school on a Thursday, he’s got the collar of his crew neck t-shirt stuck around his forehead and behind his ears. Derek waits out the scramble before saying, “You need to stop undermining me.”

Stiles shouts, falls back into the doorframe, curses violently, and clutches his shirt to his chest.

His breaths come almost as heavy as the glare he pins Derek with.

“You—oh my  _god_ ,” he snaps. “Jesus  _Christ._ You just took an extra six years off my life, you  _gigantic asshole_.”

Derek waits this out, too.

“How the fuck did you even get in here?” Stiles demands, and his eyes going to the window like he’s expecting to find it busted in. “Is this a  _game_ to you? Do you, like, plan to pop in every once in a while just to make sure it still  _scares the shit out of me_? Because, I vote  _not doing that_ or at  _least_ not doing that when I’m half-naked and smell like ass!”

“Then put your shirt back on,” Derek snaps, “and  _listen to me_  so I can leave.”

“You never leave,” Stiles groans, knocking his head back against the door frame. “I keep  _hoping_ but you  _never do_.”

It hits a tender spot somewhere inside of Derek to hear Stiles say that. Hits it  _hard_. He tries to keep his expression neutral-to-unhappy, but he has a sneaking suspicion that he misses the mark. He’s hurt for reasons he doesn’t want to examine right now, so he grinds his teeth together and forces himself to say, “ _stop_ complaining about my clothes. I’m the alpha, and when you undermine me with stupid shit like that, it ruins everything. ”

Stiles isn’t as quick as Derek, doesn’t hide his hurt as quickly. But it’s gone before Derek is, replaced by an irritated scowl. Derek leaves, passing Stiles through the doorway and holding his breath. He stops, considers, then says, “They’re just  _clothes_. Stop paying attention to them.”

He takes the steps two at a time; it’s not until he gets to the front door that he hears Stiles exhale, shakily, and say, “Yeah, like  _that’s_ going to happen.”

 

 

 

“The word today is  _‘aubergine,’_ boys and girls,” Stiles mutters when they run into each other at the grocery store, eyeing the purple, long-sleeved v-neck Derek’s wearing. It came in a pack of three marked $5.99, and they were out of the gray ones that Derek usually buys, the ones he finds more sensible.

Unsure of what to say, Derek just frowns and silently turns to walk away.

“Yeah, great running into you, too,” Stiles sighs.

Derek turns on him and says, “Am I doing something to piss you off?”

It’s not heated, but it’s not exactly gentle or quiet, either. Stiles casts a look over his shoulder like he’s expecting to see a cart full of toddlers repeating the word ‘piss,’ then looks back at Derek with a scowl.

“You’re  _always_ doing something that pisses me off,” he grinds out, tearing a hand through his hair as a flush settles into his cheeks. He works his jaw for a second, stares at the ground, and says, “But, no. Nothing  _in particular_ is pissing me off today.”

“Good,” Derek says stiffly.

“I—” Stiles steps forward, his basket riding up his forearm into the crook of his elbow as he starts gesturing. “I don’t mean to be an asshole, you know. I didn’t want to, like, offend your delicate sensibilities.”

Derek stares at him, his face scrunched up in confusion. He doesn’t totally follow, but he knows a ‘talk’ when he hears one coming, knows to brace himself and get the hell out as quickly as he can. So he says, “… I have to go.”

Stiles sighs, deflates, and lets him.

 

 

 

“Huh,” Isaac says, dropping his backpack on the old, ugly couch they keep at the rail depot. “I like that shirt.”

Derek sighs and pinches the simple green crew neck he’s wearing, pulling it out to inspect it. It’s not—it’s  _nothing special_ , but it’s another one of his new ones, another thing he’s gotten recently. He’s never known so many people to  _care_ about this shit before, and it’s unsettling as hell.

He goes back to the books in front of him, trying to decode something Deucalion hinted at the last time they met.

He can feel Isaac’s eyes lingering, though, so he sighs, puts the book in his hands down, and turns to face him.

“It’s just green,” he says pitifully. “It’s. just.  _green_.”

Isaac nods vaguely, eyes on Derek’s shirt. “Yeah, that’s definitely what I’d call it. Green. Like,  _really_ green.”

Derek sighs. “I don’t understand,” he admits, feeling beaten by whatever this mind game is.

Isaac shrugs. “You look less like a serial killer,” he offers.

Derek scowls at him. “I wear green a lot,” he argues.

“Not  _that_ green.”

“Definitely not that green,” Boyd agrees, coming down the rickety old staircase. “You look less like a serial killer.”

Isaac grins. “Told you.”

One day, Derek’s going to remind them that he’s the Alpha of this little pack and that they should respect him.

Today is not that day.

 

 

 

He finds Stiles in a fast food place that sells half-priced curly fries on Wednesdays between 2 and 4. Well, he finds Stiles’s  _Jeep_  in a fast food  _parking lot,_ but it’s really the same thing.

Stiles is hunched over a Chemistry II book with a highlighter, chewing mindlessly on a curly fry that’s hanging out of the corner of his mouth. When Derek slides into the booth across from him, he looks up, confused, then chokes a little.

“ _Nope_ ,” he says flatly when he’s done coughing, “ _Still_ creepy as hell. What do you— _wow_ , that’s green.”

Derek rolls his eyes heavenward and takes a curly fry. “Yeah, it is. And I have lots of other shirts in lots of different colors. A rainbow of shirts, even.”

Stiles gapes at him, watching as Derek picks the fry apart and eats it piece by piece.

“That’s—” he starts, then pauses, then continues, “that’s not how you eat curly fries. I’m pretty sure that’s actually considered sacrilege in, like, four different religions.”

“Name one,” Derek challenges.

“Mine.”

They stare at each other for a long minute, but then Stiles’s mouth twists into this pleased, amused little thing.

It’s gratifying for reasons Derek can’t name.

“I like green,” Stiles says after a while. “Possibly my favorite color, actually.”

“I like it too,” Derek says flatly. “That’s why I’m wearing it.”

Stiles snorts. “Dude, you’ve worn nothing but shades of gray since we met.”

Derek opens his mouth to argue.

“No, really,” Stiles says before Derek can get a word in edgewise. “I spent a good two percent of my summer making  _50 Shades of Grey_  jokes  _about your wardrobe_. Summer break is, like, ninety days. If you took all of the jokes I made about your clothing choices and made me say them from first to last, it would take me a day and a half to get through them all.”

Derek can’t say for sure, but he’s pretty positive he looks like he just bit into a lemon for the first time.

“And then, out of the blue,” Stiles says, waving his hand in what is apparently an _out of the blue_ type of gesture, “here you are— in color. Your life is _Pleasantville_ , you realize. You are the walking, talking, grows-fangs-and-howls _P_ _leasantville_. That’s your life.”

Derek stares at him flatly.

“… Tobey Maguire? Kirsten Dunst?” Stiles offers. “Ringing any bells?”

“It was Reese Witherspoon,” Derek corrects.

Stiles narrows his eyes. “No, it wasn’t. It was totally Kirsten Dunst.”

Derek goes for another fry. “You have a smart phone. Look it up.”

Stiles slaps his hand away and digs in his pocket for his phone. He punches in the search almost angrily, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed.

“Oh my god,” he says, sounding dazed as he falls back against his seat. “It was Reese Witherspoon. My whole life’s been a lie. I just got corrected on a pop culture reference by a  _hermit who lives in a rail car_.”

Derek takes a fry with a smirk.

 

 

 

“Fucking Harris,” Stiles mutters, stumbling into his room close to six o’clock at night, rubbing at his eyes and looking like hell.

For once, he doesn’t jump when he finds Derek in his room. He just looks—resigned? But warmer than that.

“Oh, god,” he groans. “Don’t tell me someone’s dead. I still have a whole page of Chemistry questions even after that detention from hell,  _and_ I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.”

“No one’s dead,” Derek tells him.

Stiles mumbles something incoherent, drops his bag at his feet, and stumbles over to the bed to fall face forward on the mattress, his legs hanging off the edge, still. “Cool,” he snuffles, nuzzling his face against the comfort. “What do you need, then?”

Derek doesn’t know how to say _I need you to talk to Scott, talk some sense into him, make him believe in strength in numbers_ , in a tactful way, so he says it pretty much like that.

Stiles groans. “Does it have to be tonight?”

Derek takes pity on him. “No. But soon.”

“Mkay,” Stiles says agreeably. “Then sleep tonight.”

“Didn’t you say you have Chemistry to do?”

Stiles snorts, half asleep already. “Fuck Harris, man.”

 

 

 

“You,” Stiles says, an accusatory finger pointed at Derek’s face. “You in your freakin’ terracotta t-shirt. You  _owe_ me. Big time.”

Derek rolls his eyes and bats Stiles’s hand away with the back of his own. “You talked to Scott?”

“I talked to Scott,” Stiles nearly spits out. “Do you have any idea how upset he was with me? He acted like I was sleeping with the enemy. I don’t think Scott’s  _ever_ looked at me like that before. And because of who?  _you!”_

Derek frowns. “If you didn’t think it was a good idea,” he starts, but Stiles sighs noisily.

“It’s not that,” he says weakly. “That—it is a good idea. I know, I’m just as surprised as you are. Trust me. But it is. It’s the best way to keep us safe. Strength in numbers, like you said.”

“No one here is going to betray you,” Derek says firmly.

Stiles laughs, humorlessly at first, though it gets some heart at the end. “Assuming everyone here is on the same page about your uncle, then yeah. I trust that.”

Derek doesn’t like to think about Peter.

He likes to think about the slope of Stiles’s nose when he glances over his shoulder, like he’s expecting Peter to show up now that he’s being talked about. He likes to think about the thoughtless shifting Stiles does, the way he wrings his hands and bounces back on his feet every few seconds. He likes to think about the sound of Stiles’s voice when Stiles is saying –

“Derek?”

Derek says, “Thank you,” and means it. “For talking to Scott.”

A small smile pulls Stiles’s mouth up on one side. It’s sort of sad, sort of pleased. He says, “Yeah. Try not to fuck it up, okay? My ass is on the line here.”

Derek wants to tell him he won’t, but he has a really bad habit of fucking things up.

 

 

 

“So, they want Jackson, we point them in Jackson’s direction,” Stiles suggests, holding a frozen steak to his forehead. “Easy. Problem solved.”

Scott and Derek both turn a sour look to him, and Stiles sighs.

“Jackson can’t take care of himself,” Derek says. “Even  _if_ he has another pack, there’s no way they’ll be able to handle an Alpha Pack.”

“We don’t  _know_ that,” Stiles insists. “Knowing Jackson, he’s probably found himself the  _flashiest_  pack of werewolves in the freaking world. I bet they’re, like, the major leaguers of this game. Jackson will be  _fine_.”

“Stiles,” Scott says, “we can’t just put Jackson in danger like that. I know he’s a dick, but—”

“A huge dick,” Stiles agrees.

“The biggest,” Isaac says absently, rotating his wrist as the muscles and bones there heal.

“That doesn’t  _matter_ , though,” Scott argues. “We can’t just push this off on somebody else. This is our responsibility.”

“I’m with Scott on this one,” Derek says.

Stiles narrows his eyes. “This is the opposite of what I wanted,” he says. But he throws his hands up in the air, anyway, including the steak, and that seems to be the end of his argument. “So, since we’re  _not_ giving them what they  _want_ , what are we going to do?”

“Well,” a honey-sweet voice says, one that’s familiar in a way that makes Derek tense up immediately, “you can start by sharing with the class what you idiots have been doing.”

“ _Lydia_ ,” Stiles chokes out. “We were  _just_  going to—”

She glares at him from the foot of the McCall staircase, Allison just over her shoulder, then she turns those cool green eyes to Derek.

“We want in,” she says simply.

And, hell, Derek’s already in for a penny, and he needs all the help he can get.

So, he says, “Okay.”

 

 

 

Having Lydia in their little ragtag group means that Derek  _finally_ knows where those homemade Molotov cocktails came from back in February, which is pretty good information to have. It does  _not_ mean that Lydia’s forgotten that Derek once tried to kill her, was nearly the death of her boyfriend, and is definitely the reason that her boyfriend has been picked up and moved away—but her attention seems to be elsewhere.

It’s in the middle of another argument between Derek and Peter that Derek discovers Lydia’s real motive.

She steps into the shell of Derek’s childhood home, her heels a real safety hazard on the unstable, rotten-through floors, and freezes, her eyes narrowed on Peter as she shoves a handful of papers at Derek. With a toss of her red hair, she says, “This is our strategy,” with absolute confidence.

Then she leaves.

“That girl is going to try to put a knife in my back,” Peter muses.

Derek knows enough about Lydia already to know she’s a lot more creative than that.

And he doesn’t pin her as the “trying” type.

 

 

 

“Lydia’s going to kill Peter,” Derek says when Stiles gets home from another detention.

“Good,” Stiles says vehemently, surprising Derek.

He doesn’t know a lot about what happened between Stiles and Peter, but he’s never thought twice about it. All Peter ever said, once he came back from the grave, was that Stiles was easy enough to persuade. He’d said it in a way that’d chilled Derek, so Derek hadn’t pressed. Now, when Stiles drops himself in his computer chair and scrubs a hand through his hair, he kind of wish he had.

“My uncle,” Derek starts, but Stiles’s expression closes off, becomes something hard. “Nevermind. I’m not going to get in Lydia’s way if she does anything.”

He waits, considers Stiles for a long moment, then adds, “Or you.”

Stiles looks startled by that, but then he laughs. “Oh, god, no. I’m not going around _planning_ to kill anybody. Jesus Christ.”

Derek nods his head like he understands; he can’t say he’s actively planned to kill many people, and the ones he’s had to kill he hasn’t enjoyed killing.

“In other news,” Stiles says, “Allison’s dad found Allison’s grandfather. All the Argents are heading out of town to settle that this weekend.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Really.”

“Yeah,” says Stiles with a grin. “Apparently, this hunting thing? It’s like a family business or something.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Really,” he deadpans. “I never would have guessed.”

Stiles laughs, and it’s a good sound—it’s a sound Derek wants to get used to.

“So,” Stiles starts, lowering his eyes. He looks smaller, somehow, curled into himself in his computer chair, eyes on the floor. He says, “In an attempt to relive some of my childhood and, you know, realize everything I’ve been wrong about all this time, I totally have a download of _Pleasantville_ on my computer. I was gonna make some popcorn and go to town on that—you, uh, wanna stick around?”

There are a thousand different ways Derek could answer that:

“No.”

“I have to go.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“If I do that, I’m not going to want to leave.”

“Stiles, that’s definitely not a good idea.”

“I really shouldn’t.”

“I can’t.”

“No.”

Instead he shucks his jacket, rolls his eyes, and says, “But I’m wearing  _gray_ today.”

Stiles grins, and his cheeks are stained pink. It’s enough color for Derek, really. That’s good.

 

 

 

“Hey, that didn’t go terribly!” Stiles tries, but Derek just grunts. Lydia considers her nails, and Allison restrings her bow.

“I think it went well,” Lydia says smugly. She picks a piece of leather off of her shoulder, and Derek wills himself not to gag remembering that, once upon a time, that leather was  _on_  Peter.

“They’re coming back,” Allison says, getting to her feet, her bow restrung and an arrow already in her hand. She doesn’t move to nock it, but she squares her shoulders and says, “If they follow our scent, they’ll get here soon enough. We should be ready.”

Scott gets to his feet. “Have you heard anything from your dad?”

“Not since he called to let us know Stiles’s dad was ready for us,” she says. “He’s fine.  _We’re_  the ones I’m worried about.”

“We need more time,” Isaac says. Even as his wounds are closing up, Derek can see that he needs a solid fifteen minutes before he’ll be fighting-ready. Boyd isn’t looking much better. The Alpha wounds are slow-healing, and, while Derek himself is better at healing himself against them, even  _he’s_  pretty incapacitated for the time being.

“We’ve got this, right guys?” Stiles asks, looking to Scott. “We’ve always been better at this save-the-day shit, anyway.”

Scott grins and nods. “Always.” He reaches for Allison’s hand when he says it.

Derek doesn’t notice because he’s trying to find a way to make Stiles  _not_  go through with this.

“Let’s go, lovebirds,” Lydia says, hoisting her spell book to her hip and collecting the bag of mountain ash. “We’re running low, but I think Stiles and I can make this last long enough for a distraction. Now that Ethan’s out of the picture, anyway.”

She looks smug about that, and Derek has to admit that she’s taken to the violence like a fish in water. The more time he spends around Lydia, the more he thinks that’s just how she does things.

It’s hard to doubt anything she does after he just watched her use Peter as a sacrifice for killing Aiden, making him into her magical little time bomb.

The four of them start up the stairs, Stiles leading the way, when Derek finally musters up the strength to say, “Stiles.”

Stiles looks down at him, and Derek jerks his head in a come-here motion.

Stiles sighs and scrambles down the stairs past the others, looking considerably put out as he follows Derek into the small office under the stairs.

“We’re kind of on the clock here, dude,” he says as soon as he gets inside.

Derek turns on him, presses him against the door and kisses him, hot and furtive, like this is the only chance he’ll ever get. And maybe it is. He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want an answer to that. Stiles is warm and wet and tastes like the dirt and blood ( _P_ _eter’s_ blood, Derek tries not to remember) he’s had in his mouth all night, and Derek doesn’t care, doesn’t care, doesn’t  _fucking care_.

Stiles goes limp, like he’s not sure what to do, until he puts his hands on Derek’s shoulders—awkwardly—and brushes his thumbs against the collar of Derek’s shirt and the skin of Derek’s neck. He moves his lips slowly, testing, and then he pulls back.

“ _Nope_ ,” he says firmly. “We definitely don’t have time to do this right. And we’re gonna need, like, a ton of time. Lots and lots of time. Which we’ll have. When we get out of this. Alive. So, yeah. Hold that thought, and I’m just gonna—”

He gets his hand on the doorknob, twists it hard, and slips out the door, his face and neck red and a look of hard concentration on his face.

Derek’s sweating, the bones under his skin still not fully mended, and he has to sit on the edge of the old metal desk before he buries his face in his hands and starts to worry.

 

 

 

It’s Allison’s turn to be in the hospital when all is said and done, and her father stays by her bedside, holding her hand tightly in his own, even when she laughs and brushes him off, says, “Dad, I’m  _fine_.” Scott falls apart temporarily, thinking it’s his fault that she got clipped by an Alpha in the last minutes of the battle, so he stays away to the point that he feels guilty for staying away so he stays away some more. Lydia visits daily, with flowers and clothes and jewelry, sometimes, because Lydia believes in the power of shopping, and even if the stuff doesn’t make Allison feel any better, it certainly makes  _Lydia_ feel better.

Stiles tells Derek all of these things in between slow, soft kisses on that ratty old couch down in the rail depot, after he’s pulled Derek’s legs across his lap and leaned over him to kiss him. After he’s confessed that he hasn’t done this a lot. Derek shrugs and says, “You’re good,” and Stiles looks so pleased that he kisses him again and again, fists his hands in Derek’s t-shirt and says, “ _freaking burgundy_ ,” like it’s a revelation.

Derek takes Stiles’s face in his hands and kisses him as gently as he’s ever known how. Stiles claws at him, tries to make it  _more_ , and groans in complaint every time Derek pulls back to keep it gentle.

“You’re still young,” Derek says.

“As of three days ago, I’ve lit  _two_ men on fire and buried one alive,” Stiles says, frowning. “How many kids do you think do that?”

“I didn’t say you were a kid,” Derek says. “You’re young.”

“If this is some stupid warning, I swear to god—”

“Not a warning,” Derek promises. “I’m just saying.”

“Just saying.”

“If we’re doing this, we’re really doing this. No take backs.”

Stiles looks shocked for a minute, then drops his head to Derek’s shoulder, tightens his grip on Derek’s knee, and laughs, his pink cheeks going darker, red with humor.

“No  _take backs_ ,” he repeats, sounding dazed. “Okay, and when we’re done making out, we should totally play Power Rangers with all the other first graders, right? Dibs on the red one.”

Derek shoves at his face in an affectionate sort of way and says, “Stiles,” as sternly as he can around a smile.

“Derek,” Stiles answers, looking up at him. There’s a staring contest that goes on between them before, finally, he says, “No take backs, okay, but can I trade in the making out for, like, sloppy handjobs? I’m totally down for sloppy hand jobs right now.”

Derek rolls his eyes and says, “If you think you can handle it.”

Stiles looks at him, shocked, then says, “Oh my god, that pun. That was  _awful_. Were you  _trying_ to cockblock me or—”

Derek huffs, moves to get his legs out of Stiles’s lap, but is stopped when Stiles reaches wildly for him, pulls him close to kiss him again and say, “It’s cool. Joke’s on you ‘cause puns? Totally do it for me.”

“I’m so surprised,” Derek deadpans. “ _Something_ does it for a seventeen year old. Must be magic.”

Stiles scowls and says, “Shut up, and take your stupid red shirt off.”

Derek grins and does.

**Author's Note:**

> This and other stories can be found on my tumblr. I'm [breenwolf.tumblr.com](http://breenwolf.tumblr.com), and I'd love it if you came and said hello!


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